General McQuarrie - TAC - Basic (30 40)

Character Profile

Species

Human from Ralltiir

Status

Part of the Rebel Alliance

Weapon of Choice

Blaster pistol, blaster rifle

Characteristic

Fights to save the galaxy from the Empire

Hailing from the prosperous planet of Ralltiir, General Pharl McQuarrie watches as his world is crushed in the iron-fisted grasp of the Empire. He joins the Rebel Alliance and helps establish the Rebels' new base on Hoth, working closely with his friend Jeroen Webb.

Love
them or hate them, cameos in the
Star Wars films and the action figures
based on them will remain a popular
inclusion in any basic figure line.
For fans love the actions that play
their favorite Star Wars characters
and seeing them sans mask is a very
cool yet surreal experience. You would
probably need more than two hands to
count all of the action figures based
on these cameo instances in the films
because they are becoming more and
more popular with collectors than ever
before now. But the frenzy really started
taking off in the 2003 Star Wars line.
When we all got “the guy who
played C-3PO” and “the
guy who played Jar Jar Binks” into
our collections, we wanted more and
more of these types of figures. And
who could forget the Lucas family exclusive
box set from Star Wars Shop a few years
later? (Well, that was a bad example
because we really didn’t want
that set.) Despite lots of Prequel
Trilogy cameos, it hasn’t been
too often (if ever) that we got cameo
figures from the Original Trilogy.
That pretty much changed with the release
of General McQuarrie from the 30
(77-07) line. Many mistook him for a Ralph McQuarrie Signature Series concept art figure when he first saw
release because of the name, but this
is an actual character in The Empire
Strikes Back. While the figure itself
won’t make you do cartwheels,
it is definitely a cool enough to purchase,
so we recommend not passing on him.

The
figure borrows 90% of his parts from
and is essentially 2006’s
TSC Major Bren Derlin (SAGA 008) with
the cap from 2007’s VTSC Han
Solo (Hoth Outfit) figure and an all-new head.
Yet General McQuarrie looks so good
he can hold his own even though he
is riding on another figure’s
coattails. Clearly Hasbro saved major
tooling costs on this figure, but hey,
why not? If this was the figure to
cut costs, we say more power to them.
And because this is a figure that most
will want simply for posterity, the
figure is a perfect addition to the
line as is. We don’t need General
MCQuarrie with 14 points of articulation.
Come on, folks, this figure is perfect
as is. Interestingly, there is not
much we know about General Pharl McQuarrie
other than what is in Wookieepedia
or elsewhere in the Expanded Universe
because all he did in Episode V was
walk across the screen. If you look
at the reference photo below, you’ll
notice that General McQuarrie is holding
the equivalent of a laptop or notebook.
We would have loved to see Hasbro create
this accessory for this action figure.
We think this a big mistake to miss
this accessory. And since the 30
(77-07) line was know for its impressively
sized action figures and/or accessories,
we think that the inclusion of this
accessory would have made it that much
more attractive to others. And what
could that accessory be? We’d
like to think that is his sketch pad
and drawings.

We
are proud of Hasbro for paying so
much tribute towards Ralph McQuarrie
and his incredible artwork. We hope
that action figures base don concept
art doesn’t stop here. That section
of the Expanded Universe is huge and
the bank of characters that collectors
want to see immortalized as three dimensional
action figures is almost limitless.
But it is nice to get an action figure
based on the man who created it all.
And if you’re not into the character
of Pharl McQuarrie, just put the helmet
on him and use him as a background
Rebel officer. He is colored differently
enough from Major Bren Derlin that
they can be posed near each other without
looking like identical twins. The
Empire Strikes Back didn’t get represented
all that well in the 30 (77-07) line.
That is alright because the characters
that did get chosen were such amazing
choices. And don’t forget that
five of the 2007 The Saga Collection "vintage styled" figures were all from The
Empire Strikes Back. We think Hasbro knew
this too and that is why they were
a little more relaxed with the characters
from Episode V in the basic line. General
McQuarrie may be the weakest of the
bunch, but to purchase would be to
pay homage to an incredible artist
but for which the Star Wars universe
would never have looked the same. Thank
you, Mr. McQuarrie, for bringing George
Lucas’ vision to full fruition.
And thank you Hasbro for bringing and
action figure based on him to fruition
also.